


In Your Hands

by FaintlyMacabre



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood, F/F, Femslash, Gunshot Wounds, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 09:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21372169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaintlyMacabre/pseuds/FaintlyMacabre
Summary: Jean can handle herself in a fight. The aftermath? Not always so much. But she has Marla for that.
Relationships: Female Gunslinger/Capable Widow Who Patches Her Up After A Fight Sometimes
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2019





	In Your Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stopmopingstarthoping](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stopmopingstarthoping/gifts).

> Happy FemslashEx, stopmopingstarthoping, I hope you like this! They say write what you know, and while I am not a medical professional in any way, I am very gay.

“Jesus, what was it this time? All your exes finally meet and team up for revenge?” Marla’s just standing there in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest, looking real unimpressed. Guess I can’t blame her. It’s the third time this month.

“Tell you what,” I say, trying and failing not to wince as I feel the blood slogging out of the gash on my arm, “patch me up and I’ll tell you the whole story, and I’ll even throw in not bleeding all over your fresh-painted porch.”

“I can just make you repaint the porch,” she says, but holds the door open for me anyway. By now it’s just muscle memory; my legs, now with an added limp, carry me to the end of the hall and into her kitchen, to the wooden chair that’s already pulled out from the table. It’s not for me. Not like she’d know I was coming. There’s a mug next to it on the table, just black coffee dregs in the bottom.

“That’s the last of the coffee, if you were wondering.” Marla’s got the kit all ready to go, must keep it close at hand.

“I didn’t even ask you for coffee,” I say. “Anybody ever tell you your bedside manner leaves something to be desired?”

“Bedside manner,” she muses, opening the kit on the table. She’s restocked her gauze since last time. “Isn’t that what doctors have? Who get paid for this?”

“I offered to pay you,” I mumble, resenting how slow I feel, probably from the blood loss.

“I don’t want your money.” Marla pulls out a chair for herself and sits, facing me. “I’m just teasing you, Jean. What’s the matter, you keep your sense of humor in your blood?”

“’S possible,” I say. There are spots at the edges of my vision now.

“You don’t look so good,” Marla says, peering into my eyes one at a time, she’s that close. “Where else did you get hit?”

“I don’t go into your home and make personal remarks,” I say, ignoring her question.

“Jean, where’d you get hit?” she demands. She didn’t even rise to the bait and tell me that we weren’t _in_ my home. I must be worse off than I thought.

“Arm.”

“I know about the arm.” She goes for the buttons on my shirt and I don’t make a dumb joke about it. I can feel one floating around in my head, but the words aren’t lining up. She eases it off my shoulders and I can’t keep from hissing in pain as the fibers pull out of the wound. “Jean.”

“Hm?”

“Did you know about this?”

“Know about…?”

“You got shot in the side.” She sounds more worried, and farther away now. “Damn black shirt and you just keep your arm down and I can’t see shit. Is this you trying to be stoic? Because I’ve got to say, I’m not a fan.”

“Oh, yeah, got shot in the side.” It’s coming back, the feeling of the bullet ripping through me in slow motion, not a graze, burying itself in me. “Just before I got his shoulder. I remember now.”

“I’m not in a joking mood anymore,” she says, trying to peel my undershirt up without leaving too much of it behind.

“Not joking,” I say. “Forgot.” It’s harder to talk now, my tongue and jaw heavy in a way I’d never considered possible. The spots are getting bigger.

“Hey, no, you are not dying on me in my kitchen.” I feel her hand go around to my back. “It didn’t come out the other side. We’re gonna get you down on the floor and then I am getting that bullet out of you.”

Then I’m on the floor. How’d I get here? Did I fall or— damn, maybe Marla’s a lot stronger than I gave her credit for.

“Yeah, you can tell me about my arms later.” Must’ve said that out loud.

“Might as well say it now,” I manage. “Might not be a later.”

“Oh yes there fucking will,” she says, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard her sound that serious before. Her hands are on the back of my head, lifting it, sliding something under it, something soft. I don’t see her for a second but then she’s back.

“Now this—” She pulls the stopper out of a bottle. “Is gonna hurt like a mother.” And then I’m screaming because my side is on fire. “Good,” she says. “I know you’re still with me. Hang in there, because this isn’t gonna be much better.” And now there’s something in the hole in my side, digging for the bullet.

“Holy— goddamn shit!” I don’t even know what I’m saying, the words are ripping themselves out of me, if they’re even all words.

“Stop moving, or I might not find it.”

“Good fucking luck there.”

“Oh hell.” Marla moves and she’s straddling my thighs. “Keep your arms on the floor, all I need is for you to get in a lucky punch and knock me out before I can remove the bullet.”

I clench my hands into fists tight as I’m clenching my jaw. “Don’t need luck.”

“Right now, you need just about anything the universe’ll give you. You know any prayers? Wait, there.” The pain in my side is even worse for a second, and then it’s… not better, but there’s nothing digging into me.

“Got it,” Marla says, holding this little lump of metal in a pair of tweezers over my face, and then I don’t see anything at all.

Yellow curtains.

The window’s open, and they’re blowing in, soft, floating. Translucent. Serene.

I don’t have yellow curtains.

I try sitting up, but this pain in my side makes that a non-starter, so I turn my head. There’s a chair pulled up to the side of the bed, and in it is Marla.

“You’re up,” she says. “About time.” But her hands are shaking, and when I look closer I can see traces of blood on them. I remember.

“What—” But I don’t know what I want to ask. What happened to me? What am I doing here? What time is it?

“Maybe next time you show up after getting shot almost to death, you say, ‘I need you to drive me to the hospital,’ or, ‘It’s serious,’ or something.” And now her voice is shaking too. “Instead of standing in front of the porch like a—” She claps a hand over her mouth and turns away.

“Hey, Mar—” I try reaching out to her but neither my arm nor my side likes that very much. “Hey.”

She shakes her head, wipes roughly at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “I really hate you sometimes, you know that?” Not what I was expecting; usually with Mar, conversations don’t get overly sincere. Which is fine, that’s just not how we talk. Usually. Guess brushes with death have a way of changing things.

“Seems like the only times I see you, you’re bleeding. You know how hard that is? You know I don’t _like _seeing you hurt? You know I don’t do this for everybody? That it matters to me what happens to you?”

I try reaching out with my other hand this time, a little awkward, but I’ve got to. I can’t stand seeing her like this, knowing I made her feel this way. “Mar.”

“No, goddamn it, I’m mad at you.” But she sits on the bed, carefully, so as not to jostle me too much.

She still won’t look at me. “Mar.”

“You’re a jackass,” she whispers.

“I know. Mar.” Still nothing. “Sweetheart.” That’s what does it, surprises her into looking at me, finally, finally. “I’m sorry for worrying you. I didn’t think you—” I cough and it sends bolts of pain through me. Maybe for the best, I probably would’ve just sounded stupid. “Thank you. For what it’s worth, I don’t just want to see you when I’m bleeding in front of your porch.” She laughs, short and humorless. “What if I promised the next time I come over, you’ll know when it’s going to happen, I won’t be bleeding, and…” Well, if I sound stupid, I sound stupid—still not the worst idea I've had today by a long shot. “…I’ll bring flowers.”

She’s trying not to smile, I can see it in the corners of her mouth, in her eyebrows. “Flowers, huh?” And she sounds the way she usually does, maybe a little less mad, maybe not, but it helps me breathe easier. “Jean Kelley, didn’t you once tell me you couldn’t tell a rose from a radish?”

I did, I remember that. “Well, maybe I can ask someone to help me find something good. Or you know, I could just bring you coffee, seeing as how you’re so tragically out you can’t even offer any to your guests?”

“Shut up.” She looks like she’s going to swat me on the arm before she remembers, takes my other hand instead. “And put this down, you’re gonna cramp.” But you know? A cramp doesn’t sound half bad if I got it reaching for Marla Sanchez’s hand.


End file.
